#478 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday October 10)
Good morning,
THE RISE IN CRIME IN LOS ANGELES
I’m not a fan of Los Angeles’s District Attorney, but I don’t fault him entirely for the recent rise in crime in the City and its environs. People cite crime statistics that indicate that violent crimes are up in L.A. While that’s true, it is up in most other major cities as well. Nonviolent crimes also are up. People cite the impunity of “snatch and grab” attacks on high-end stores as indicative of the problem. Some of the blame is placed on the dollar amount above which a theft constitutes a felony and there are those who believe this shouldn’t have become law. To be clear, the number magnitude of a theft that constitutes a felony was raised from $500 to $950 per offense. While that seems like a large increase, it is less than the rate of inflation since the prior threshold was established and it remains lower than in most other jurisdictions.
The problem with Gascon is the unwillingness to prosecute many crimes, allowing them to occur without consequence. If a potential criminal concludes that the risk of consequence for a bad act is low (or non-existent), there is little impediment to the bad behavior. General deterrence works and lack of prosecution ensures no deterrence. The unwillingness to hold people accountable has contributed to crime and has made people feel less safe. There is little doubt that, through a combination of laxness, police fear of retribution, insufficient police and judicial resources, and prosecutorial resistance, crime has risen. But that doesn’t justify some of the other inequities of a system in need of reform.
The problem is there is a conflation of related issues. Gascon’s decisions not to prosecute crimes don’t solve many of the real problems in the criminal justice system—his pronouncements are performative for headlines—headlines that now are backfiring on him (even if he escaped recall).
DISTINGUISHING THE ISSUES
Let’s separate out two issues that, while related, are really not that connected. One issue is the need to keep our cities safe and free of crime. The second is fixing the criminal justice system. It seems clear that, with mass incarceration, long minimum sentences, prosecutorial overreach, and other inequities of the system, the “punishment doesn’t fit the crime.” Until punishments are more rehabilitative—and less punitive—in nature, there will be those who seek to remedy the situation by simply prosecuting less, when the real solutions are more elusive and often counter to the bloodlust the American public feels toward the criminal “other.”
The system is broken in a number of broad contexts. Here are just some of the ways:
Prosecutorial discretion and overreach are forcing plea bargains with significant penalties for even small crimes. As long as assistant District Attorneys are judged on their “win column” and in the number of cases they can plea out through use of the threat of longer sentences, this system can’t be fixed. I would favor independent commissions looking at the crimes and sentencing (particularly through plea bargains) to establish whether there was a “real case” or whether the accused was so spooked by the prospect of a longer sentence that he/she opted to plead out.
Mandatory sentencing rules, including as embodied by the “three strikes” law should, by all rights, either be eliminated or reduced. Why can’t we trust judges to exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis? The idea that we take away discretion from those we entrust to apply our laws?
Our prison system is a gulag of people serving long sentences, while failing to address job training, counseling and rehabilitation for when they leave. Funding for these sorts of efforts can be enhanced by shortening prison terms and the costs of incarcerating people for long sentences. By way of example, how often do we believe that a 20 year sentence is warranted when 10 years wouldn’t be enough?
Our parole system is unduly difficult and skewed against parole, while imposing unreasonable restrictions on parolees that stand in the way of their leading productive lives after prison. We often still allow prosecutors and victims’ families to testify at parole hearings. Didn’t they already have their day in court? The evidence was presented, the conviction was established and the penalty (including the possibility of parole) was assessed. At a parole hearing, the issue should be the good behavior of the inmate and their potential to commit future harm to society.
Reform is necessary. Yet allowing crimes to be committed without consequence, largely as a result of dissatisfaction with sentencing and prison systems, is hardly the answer. Our attentions should be focused on shortening sentencing, addressing rehabilitation, confronting how mental health plays into criminal behaviors, and limiting prosecutorial discretion in its more aggressive incarnations. Making our cities less safe won’t address any of these problems.
The way in which we police and protect our cities and the way in which we address our penal system are two different things. One can be demanding on enforcement of laws but rational and compassionate in assessing consequences. These are not inconsistent ideas.
DON’T DO THIS NAKED
Someone sent this to me and it’s so absurd that it warrants repeating. Here are some of the “top” things one should never do in the nude:
1. Deep fry a turkey (or, for that matter, fry bacon)
2. Sit on a hot leather couch
3. Pick the kids up from school
4. Play with a kitten
5. Iron clothes
6. Pick up the newspaper
7. Make snow angels
8. Do carpentry work
9. Super glue anything
10. Get on a Zoom call with Jeffrey Toobin…[okay, so I added this one]…
Have a great day,
Glenn
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